June 2005 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

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June proved to be the best month of the year in overall sales, thanks to two issues of Marvel's "event" comic for the year, House of M. Sales of comic books and trade paperbacks to comics shops increased 9% in the first half of 2005 to $168.4 million.

Marvel led DC in Diamond's reported overall unit and dollar market shares, and that held true for each of the narrower calculations. DC had 98 comics in the Top 300 versus Marvel's 86; Image posted a strong month with 35 titles making the list. Dark Horse's strength continued to be in its backlist, coming in third in Diamond's overall dollar list despite having only 13 comics in the Top 300, just one more than IDW.

Diamond did not release the dollar sales rankings for the comics in 101st through 300th place this month.

Read more in my original report from the month, the first of my monthly reports published to the internet, appearing first on the Comics Buyer's Guide website. You can also click to skip to the Top Graphic Novels for the month.

—John Jackson Miller

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 chart. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
Where dollar rankings were not available, "999" is listed for sorting purposes.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
The links lead to current listings for each item on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

Note: This category diverges slightly from Diamond's reported measures for all comics and graphic novels. Slight differences are introduced by the presence of magazines and other factors.

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$3.15

Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders:$2.94

Average cost of comics in the Top 25:$2.60

Median cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.99

Most common cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.99

MARKET SHARES

Share of Overall Units

Marvel

42.61%

DC

40.24%

Dark Horse

3.87%

Image

3.27%

Wizard

1.09%

Devil's Due

0.90%

Viz

0.79%

IDW

0.67%

Dynamic

0.66%

Tokyopop

0.63%

Aspen

0.59%

Archie

0.54%

Avatar

0.36%

Gemstone

0.28%

Slave Labor

0.23%

Digital Manga

0.18%

Oni

0.16%

Fantagraphics

0.13%

Random House

0.11%

ADV

0.07%

Others

2.64%

Share of Overall Dollars

Marvel

39.51%

DC

36.72%

Dark Horse

4.84%

Image

3.87%

Wizard

1.84%

Viz

1.76%

Tokyopop

1.53%

Devil's Due

0.93%

IDW

0.78%

Digital Manga

0.60%

Dynamic

0.55%

Aspen

0.44%

Gemstone

0.40%

Avatar

0.40%

Archie

0.36%

Random House

0.35%

Fantagraphics

0.33%

Oni

0.29%

Slave Labor

0.27%

ADV

0.20%

Others

4.03%

Items in Top 300

DC

92

Marvel

85

Image

29

Archie

15

Dark Horse

10

IDW

10

Devil's Due

8

Gemstone

4

Aspen

3

Avatar

3

Boom

3

Dork Storm

3

Mirage

3

Slave Labor

3

Antarctic

2

Basement

2

Bongo

2

Digital Webbing

2

Dynamic

2

Icarus

2

Markosia

2

Moonstone

2

Oni

2

Sirius

2

Viz

2

Zenescope

2

Ape

1

Fantagraphics

1

Kenzer

1

Radio

1

Top Shelf

1

Share of Units in Top 300

Marvel

46.66%

DC

42.00%

Image

3.11%

Dark Horse

2.42%

Devil's Due

1.01%

IDW

0.69%

Dynamic

0.68%

Aspen

0.64%

Archie

0.58%

Avatar

0.33%

Bongo

0.27%

Gemstone

0.24%

Boom

0.18%

Slave Labor

0.15%

Mirage

0.11%

Dork Storm

0.09%

Zenescope

0.09%

Antarctic

0.08%

Digital Webbing

0.08%

Markosia

0.07%

Kenzer

0.07%

Viz

0.07%

Oni

0.06%

Moonstone

0.05%

Sirius

0.05%

Basement

0.05%

Icarus

0.04%

Fantagraphics

0.04%

Top Shelf

0.03%

Ape

0.02%

Radio

0.02%

Share of Dollars in Top 300

Marvel

47.48%

DC

40.15%

Image

3.17%

Dark Horse

2.58%

Devil's Due

1.33%

IDW

0.83%

Dynamic

0.67%

Aspen

0.59%

Archie

0.47%

Avatar

0.44%

Gemstone

0.39%

Bongo

0.26%

Boom

0.20%

Slave Labor

0.17%

Viz

0.13%

Kenzer

0.12%

Mirage

0.11%

Dork Storm

0.10%

Digital Webbing

0.10%

Zenescope

0.10%

Markosia

0.09%

Antarctic

0.08%

Icarus

0.07%

Moonstone

0.07%

Oni

0.06%

Sirius

0.06%

Basement

0.05%

Top Shelf

0.04%

Fantagraphics

0.04%

Radio

0.02%

Ape

0.02%

Dollar Share of Top 300 Comics & Top 100 TPBs

Marvel

45.09%

DC

39.39%

Image

4.02%

Dark Horse

3.84%

Devil's Due

1.14%

IDW

0.80%

Viz

0.65%

Dynamic

0.57%

Aspen

0.50%

Digital Manga

0.42%

Gemstone

0.41%

Archie

0.40%

Avatar

0.37%

Wizard

0.30%

Tokyopop

0.26%

Bongo

0.22%

Boom

0.17%

Slave Labor

0.14%

Rebellion

0.12%

Kenzer

0.10%

Mirage

0.09%

Dork Storm

0.09%

Digital Webbing

0.08%

Zenescope

0.08%

Graphitti

0.08%

ADV

0.08%

Markosia

0.07%

Antarctic

0.07%

Icarus

0.06%

Moonstone

0.06%

Oni

0.05%

Sirius

0.05%

Evil Twin

0.04%

Basement

0.04%

Top Shelf

0.04%

Fantagraphics

0.04%

Radio

0.02%

Ape

0.02%

THE FINE PRINT

The monthly sales estimates at right are for items shipped by Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic-book distributor in North America.

Diamond does not publish sales figures; instead it publishes "indexed" sales tables, in which it keys orders for all comics it lists sales for to a single comic book (usually Batman), with one “order index point” being equal to 1% of that title’s orders.

Along with other methods, we use the actual Diamond final orders from titles to approximate what an order index point equals each month.The result is applied to the Diamond charts to produce the estimates seen at right.

The figures represent only those comics and graphic novels that Diamond shipped to North American retailers in the calendar month. While Diamond's sales represent the majority of periodicals in circulation, they are a smaller portion of the overall graphic novel market.

An item may appear in more than one month's charts due to reorders; for a better idea of a comic book's overall sales, look for its end-of-year sales in the Year Overview section, where available.

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